For Students: Class: 6th Grade Social Studies Unit: Medieval Times/Feudalism Project: Divide the class into groups of 4-5 students each. Each group makes up a Feudal “Manor.” Students assign each group member a role from the social hierarchy, choosing from Lord/nobles, Bishops/clergy members, Knights, and Serfs. The group members work together to tell a story of a “typical” day on the manor, to demonstrate understanding of the social and economic workings of Feudalism. Students create a master story map that incorporates all roles. Students collect or create pictures to tell their story, and write captions (10 words or less) to accompany each image. Students will use PowerPoint to create their stories, and save the slides as jpegs. Tools: Students use 280Slides to upload and tell their stories. Each group then embeds their stories onto a Wiki for the class’s Medieval Unit.
VoiceThread For LMS Colleagues:
Purpose: Part of being a school librarian is knowing the literature that students want to or need to read. Among all of the other responsibilities of a LMS, it can be a daunting task to keep up with books. One of the best ways to share knowledge about books is by giving book talks. I envision creating a Weebly or Wiki where library media specialists from different schools and districts can share their knowledge of current and/or popular literature for different age groups and reading levels, to help all keep current. These book talks can serve as recommendations for LMSs to read and preview for their own libraries, and/or substitute as in-person book talks for kids. For example, digital book talks could be reposted on the library website for students to browse. Using VoiceThread, a librarian could post a book talk with an image of the book, and a brief book talk (target audience, genre, plot, etc). Other LMSs could post comments on how their thoughts about that particular book, or recommendations for similar books, or even ways to use the book with curriculum. Tools: VoiceThread, embedded on a wiki or Weebly website.
Module 4
Module 4: Web 2.0 Storytelling
Synthesis Task
For Students:Class: 6th Grade Social Studies
Unit: Medieval Times/Feudalism
Project: Divide the class into groups of 4-5 students each. Each group makes up a Feudal “Manor.” Students assign each group member a role from the social hierarchy, choosing from Lord/nobles, Bishops/clergy members, Knights, and Serfs. The group members work together to tell a story of a “typical” day on the manor, to demonstrate understanding of the social and economic workings of Feudalism. Students create a master story map that incorporates all roles. Students collect or create pictures to tell their story, and write captions (10 words or less) to accompany each image. Students will use PowerPoint to create their stories, and save the slides as jpegs.
Tools: Students use 280Slides to upload and tell their stories. Each group then embeds their stories onto a Wiki for the class’s Medieval Unit.
VoiceThread For LMS Colleagues:
Purpose: Part of being a school librarian is knowing the literature that students want to or need to read. Among all of the other responsibilities of a LMS, it can be a daunting task to keep up with books. One of the best ways to share knowledge about books is by giving book talks. I envision creating a Weebly or Wiki where library media specialists from different schools and districts can share their knowledge of current and/or popular literature for different age groups and reading levels, to help all keep current. These book talks can serve as recommendations for LMSs to read and preview for their own libraries, and/or substitute as in-person book talks for kids. For example, digital book talks could be reposted on the library website for students to browse. Using VoiceThread, a librarian could post a book talk with an image of the book, and a brief book talk (target audience, genre, plot, etc). Other LMSs could post comments on how their thoughts about that particular book, or recommendations for similar books, or even ways to use the book with curriculum.Tools: VoiceThread, embedded on a wiki or Weebly website.